Virginia Trust Co. v. Lambeth Realty Corp.

The plaintiff’s demurrer to the answers of the defendants, setting up usury, apparently is based on the assumption that these defendants in pleading the usury were pursuing an equitable remedy and had taken the offensive. “He who seeks equity must do equity.” The statute itself, however, gives to the debtor, defendant in a suit upon notes tainted with usury, the right to plead forfeiture of all interest- — ■ C. S., 2306 — and makes no condition of previous tender upon such defense. The forfeiture of all interest is one of the law; and only when the debtor must resort to equity to restrain…